


To Sail 'twixt the Stars and the Sea

by clarityhiding



Category: Batman - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Aliens, Alternate Universe - Dragons, Alternate Universe - Space, Alternate Universe - Space Opera, Alternate Universe - Vikings, Angst and Feels, Brotherly Bonding, Danger with a Capital D, Established Relationship, Happy Ending, Heartbreak, Heterochromatic Jason Todd, Inspired by Treasure Planet (2002), JayTimBINGO2019, Kid Fic, M/M, Missing in Action, Non-Sexual Bondage, Rescue Missions, Road Trips, Shipwrecks, Space Whales, Vines, only in this case it's a space dragon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-01
Updated: 2019-09-06
Packaged: 2020-07-30 22:13:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 12,984
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20104432
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/clarityhiding/pseuds/clarityhiding
Summary: When a message arrives saying that the Bat Clan's scout ship has been destroyed behind enemy lines, everyone knows there's no chance its lone passenger has survived. Unfortunately, someone still has to break the bad news to the scout's lover... and the child the rest of the clan didn't know he had.Or: The JayTim space!viking AU that features Jason and Dick on a rollicking adventure through the stars while dealing with space dragons, ship graveyards, and Danger with a capital D!





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [TaneKore](https://archiveofourown.org/users/TaneKore/gifts).

> For Week 5: No Capes of JayTim Month(ish) 2019! This is probably not what was intended by "No Capes," but _technically_ no one is wearing a cape, so...
> 
> Many thanks to njw for the excellent beta! This is for the lovely TaneKore, without whom I never would have written any viking AUs and that would be a damn shame. TK is also to blame for Jason constantly being heterochromatic in my viking stories, since I just can't shake that image from my head. <3

Everything goes splendidly until it doesn't. The fleet is on its way back home after a month of successful work when a muninn pod intercepts the chief's _drakkar_ with horrible news.

Bruce gathers his children and apprises them of the situation. Finally, he clears his throat, leveling his gaze at them. "Before he last left us, your brother asked that we inform his companion should anything happen to him. We reach Parkrow in two days’ time. I expect you to have chosen a representative to convey the message by then."

This final news sets them whispering, and he can't fault them for choosing to cling to gossip instead of dwell on the fate of their missing brother. It was not a secret among the Bat Clan that young Tim was quite taken with a _völva_ he met on Parkrow some years before; that the two had at last reached an agreement is certainly news among his siblings to be sure.

Alas, Bruce fears none of them will ever have the chance to pass on their congratulations and well-wishes, and his second son shall never drink the mead that he has been keeping specifically for him to toast his marriage.

The stars shine beautiful and brilliant all around them, but at times like this they seem nothing but cold and heartless.

* * *

The ship slips down through the moon's atmosphere, smoothly entering the sea and navigating up the river that runs next to Parkrow's largest settlement. Not that it is all that big—the Bat Clan usually goes up against larger, stronger fortifications. In an effort to keep from spooking the locals, the rest of their fleet remains in space, only this modest _karve_ coming down with its sad crew and sadder message.

They weigh anchor beside an embankment, and the chief's eldest son ushers his solemn siblings off the ship and onto the grass, climbing to the top of the rise to look over the cluster of buildings below. Already, a man is stepping out of the nearest house. His dark hair is shot with white despite his youthful appearance, and he balances a youngling on his hip with practiced ease.

Seeing them, he gives a joyous _whoop_ and surges forward, loping towards them. As he draws closer, they recognize the cut and color of his garments, and their stomachs sink as they realize who this man must be.

"Did you know there was a youngling involved?" Duke hisses, turning to his brothers and sisters. "I know they've been making eyes at each other—and Tim called him his companion—but you'd think he would have mentioned a _child_!"

"Well… at least he has some small part of Tim with him, this way," Stephanie says, sounding far too sober for her years, and Dick remembers with a pang that she too had a child once, lost to marauders who ransacked her village and left her for dead.

"This is ridiculous, it can hardly be our brother's offspring," their youngest sib proclaims. "Both Timothy and this stranger are unequipped to bear children."

"Hush, Damian. Remember that you alone of all of us are of our father's blood. There are other ways to gain a child than by bearing one," Dick scolds. "We did not think there would be a child. It means this joining was blessed and true, that this _völva_ is by rights a member of our clan. Truly, only our father is fit to deliver the message."

Bruce grumbles but does not argue. There are rituals that must be observed, and though this man is a stranger, he deserves all the deference of a true warrior of the Bat.

"Greetings, travelers," the stranger says as he draws near. "My name is Jason, I act as the _völva_ for this town. I'm afraid we don't have much to trade at the moment, but we always welcome news from the stars, if you have any to share." He reaches down, deftly removing the youngling's fist from their mouth, wiping small spit-soaked fingers on his garment.

"Well met, _völva_," Bruce rumbles, raising his hand open-faced as a sign of peaceful greeting. "I am Bruce of the Bat Clan and these are my children. We do not come to trade goods, only knowledge at this time."

Jason's head snaps up, and a faint blush of green creeps over his cheeks. "The Bat Clan, you say? I don't suppose you would know Tim?"

Dick's eyes stray to the youngling and he suppresses a shudder. Those eyes are a familiar shade of blue, that nose a shape he knows too well. It's all too clear that Damian was incorrect, and this is indeed their brother's child.

"Yes, I know him, for he is also my son," Bruce admits, his head dipping in either acknowledgement or sorrow. Perhaps both, considering the news they bear. "We come with a message for you, _völva_ of Parkrow. Tim has been lost in the Shadow Realm, and must be presumed dead. You are absolved of any bonds you and he swore, though should you wish it, I will welcome you and your child into our Clan with open arms."

"I… no," Jason gasps, his legs crumpling under him as he collapses onto the grass. "We saw him only two months past. He came to Danger's naming day, and swore that when he returned this way, he would take us with him to his people."

"But you are the _völva_ for this village," Barbara says, sounding perplexed and no wonder, since she herself is the _völva_ for their Clan. "Would you abandon them and let their souls rot as they go without guidance?"

Jason snorts. "Ah, I felt much the same way when I first came here and was trained in my duties by the old _völva_ who came before me. Then, I would never dream of leaving them untended. Now, I find myself unwanted and barely tolerated. It is to be expected, I should not have tried to bury my roots among a people so afraid of what is new and different."

"Might I ask what set the people against you?" Dick doesn't mean to pry, but if this man intends to be a part of their Clan, it would be good to know more of his history.

"I am a sporling," Jason explains, and as he pushes up his sleeve, several vines that Dick had taken for tattoos pull free of his skin, waving about. "As such, I am more plant than animal, though I appear close enough to human, most times. Unfortunately, the same cannot be said when I am budding." He reaches down, running a hand through the youngling’s dense black locks. "I did not need to blossom when I did, but the stars were portentous in their alignment, and Tim was quite alluring in the moonlight. The _ørlög_ spoke to me, and I could not in good conscience ignore the call."

"So the youngling _is_ Tim's child," Bruce says, crouching down to smile at the small one, who gives a gummy grin in return.

"In as much as any seedling can be the child of a non-sporling," Jason affirms.

"We had no knowledge that Tim fathered a child," Dick admits. "The two of you must have been very close."

"Yes," Jason says, pressing his face into the youngling's hair. "We are."

* * *

Jason invites them to his home for dinner, insisting that they should feast and make merry in memory of his lost companion. "I will need some time to pack if I'm to leave this place, and it would be wasteful let all my stores be left to rot," he explains. He fries gourds and roots, and pours out liberal tankards of the clear, green liquid the people of Parkrow are well-known for brewing.

The drink leaves the visitors foggy-headed and drowsy. In the dark of night, Jason ties his seedling to his back and slips out of the house, making his way over the rise and down to the ship anchored on the other side. As he walks, the stars shine bright overhead and the grass sways in his direction, just as it always has, enchanted by his scent and nature.

Danger fusses as he awkwardly climbs over the side of the ship, and he wastes precious time calming the babe, murmuring sweet nothings and singing him back to sleep. When Jason looks up once more, the eldest of the chieftain's sons stands above him, staring down.

Jason jerks back, automatically moving to protect his seedling as his vines break free, forming some measure of shield between them and the stranger. "I am taking your ship. The others waiting above will rescue you and your family before long, but it is clear my companion has no such assurance as you all mean to leave him for dead. I don't wish to hurt you, but I will if you try to stand in my way."

The man—Dick, he introduced himself as Dick in between feasting and drinking—shakes his head and crouches down. "I can't fault you for going, though it is in all likelihood a fool's journey. Won't you at least leave the child with us? The cold reaches of the Shadow Realm is no place for a youngling, and better that his life be preserved than lost with both his parents."

The mere suggestion of abandoning his seedling has Jason thickening his vines, shooting them out bind to Dick quite effectively, struggle though he might. "I would _never_ leave my child. Yes, there will be dangers, but I will keep and protect him with my dying breath, no matter what terrible things we may face. He is mine and I am his and we will not be parted until he is quite ready to break free and find a good place to sink his roots."

The man narrows his eyes, then glances at the vines that continue to hold him fast. "I don't suppose I could convince you to wait until morning and appeal to the rest of my family for aid?"

"What, so you all can brush aside this rescue mission as nothing more than the silly fancies of a man who can't admit his lover is dead?" Jason scoffs, shaking his head. "No, I—_we_—will leave tonight."

"We?"

"Myself and Danger," Jason clarifies, running a hand over the sleeping seedling's curls. "_You_ stay here."

"Just… I expect it's been some time since you last sailed between the stars. You are of my clan, now, and I could not in good conscience leave you to steer the space alone." Dick struggles until he is kneeling before Jason, half-bowed due to his bindings. "Release me, and I will do all that I can to aid you in finding my brother."

He sounds sincere and there's a horrible sadness in his eyes. Jason does not doubt that this man misses his lost brother, but he has never been one to trust too quickly, and only moments ago this same stranger was arguing to take Jason's seedling from out of his care. "I will release you when we are free of the system. I remember enough shipcraft to make it that far," he says at last, leaning forward to squeeze Dick's bound hand in his own, the closest he can get to a handclasp of promise with the other man so trussed up.

There's a sharp intake of breath, and Dick stares at him in apparent shock. "I dare say you do," he says. "With one eye blue for the sky and one green for the sea, I expect you can see your way through all manner of waters."

Jason hisses, leaping away to see to readying the ship for departure. "My eyes are just eyes. There's nothing special about what they see." If there was, he would have seen Tim's leaving for the death sentence it may very well have been.

* * *

Dick isn't entirely sure what he was thinking, volunteering himself to go along with this very odd man on a pointless quest. Perhaps he was focused on the cost of a lost _karve_, but he suspects it was more that he knew he wouldn't be able to live with himself if he allowed this last lingering connection to his lost brother to disappear into the dark, never to be seen again. At least if he accompanies Jason, he might eventually manage to change the man's mind. And if not, perhaps he can save the child.

Tim's child. The one they never knew he had until today.

He rolls onto his side to get a better view of his captor. "If you bear more to the east, you'll skirt around the sensors of the rest of our fleet and they won't try to chase and board us."

"Ha, and why would I listen to you? You're more likely to steer me straight towards them," Jason snaps from where he stands at the rudder.

"I have no reason to wreck a perfectly good vessel and every reason to see both you and the youngling safe on your journey," Dick reminds him. "If my brother truly is lost to the Shadows, young Danger here is all that remains of him, and that alone makes him the most precious thing in the stars to me, after my own child."

Jason hesitates, then slowly makes the adjustment, turning the ship so it bears east as it lifts from the water and into the clouds. "You have a child?"

"Aye, a daughter, some cycles older than this brave whelp." Dick smiles at Danger and tries not to think of Mar'i back on Bristol. He will see her once more, he is sure. "And another on the way. My wife is a warrior as well, but she stayed home this season, being heavy with child."

"Right," Jason says, slowly nodding his head. "You humans get all awkward when you bear, don't you?" Kory isn't human, but tamaranians carry similarly enough that Dick isn't about to argue over semantics at this time.

"And I suppose sporlings don't?" He's heard tales of the species before, of course, and they've certainly traded with them often enough, but as a whole they tend to be a close-kept lot, unwilling to divulge any of their secrets to outsiders.

"Nay, we bud and grow our children. When they are large enough, we pluck them free and plant them in the soil until their roots are strong enough to bear them upright. Danger has been strong from the start. I was able to plant him only a few short rotas after he first budded, and he was crawling out of his dirt not two rotas after that."

"Do you mean to tell me Danger is less than a solar cycle in age? But he's so big!" Dick exclaims, staring at his nephew in astonishment. He had pegged the child at some 12, 14 moons old, attributing his lack of teeth to his non-human parent.

"Your brother has strong genes that have allowed his child to grow quickly, even for a sporling," Jason says, looking particularly smug over that fact. Very much like how Kory looks when bragging about Dick to her own family, now that he thinks on it.

"Well, at least now I know that Tim wasn't deliberately hiding him or you from the family. We hadn't seen him in nearly two cycles, he ranged so far on this particular journey." It had been hard, having him gone for so long, but the work Tim did was important to their clan. Gathering information, making the first steps towards forging new alliances, learning gossip. And, if he is honest with himself, Dick welcomed the sense of duty and purpose it gave Tim after the arrival of Damian.

"I wish you wouldn't do that," Jason snaps, the ship jerking slightly as he leans a bit harder on the rudder than strictly necessary.

"Do what?"

"Speak of him like he's already dead. You can't know that for certain, and yet you're in such a great hurry to bury and forget him!"

Dick jerks backwards, shocked by the sudden outburst. "Ah, I'm sorry. Perhaps it's just that I have a better sense of the situation. My father chose to share few details with you, perhaps to spare you from further pain."

"Well, if there is more to say on the matter, then please, share it," Jason growls, swinging around to glare at him.

"We received a messenger pod from Tim, but… But the pod we received, it's a muninn pod, the kind that's only sent out when a ship is utterly destroyed. The kenning within it records the place of the destruction, and then flies back to the chief ship, so the Clan might know their fellows' fate and perhaps scavenge some of the wreckage," Dick explains. "The place the ship was destroyed—it is a fair way into the Shadow Realm, the only celestial bodies airless asteroids according to what knowledge we have of the region."

"Knowledge Tim gathered for you while the rest of your people stayed safe and cozy much closer to home."

"True, but Tim also volunteered for the role of scout, and it was he who chose to cast his net outside of the range our father gave him. There is bad blood between the Bat Clan and the Shadows, and we do not venture near them when we have any say in the matter."

Jason narrows his eyes and snorts. "So instead your chief leaves his own son to suffer at the hands of the Shadows rather than risk any of his warriors to try and save him."

"You misunderstand. The messenger pod—its impersonal message, the destruction it recorded—there is little chance any part of Tim survived to be captured by the Shadows," Dick says, trying to gentle his words but unable to keep his own pain from coloring them. He understands that Jason is wounded to his very core by the news of Tim's fate, but the sporling is not the only one grieving.

"I would still know his fate so I may relay it to his child," Jason says, his hand tightening on the rudder. A shudder runs through him and he turns away, moving to the ship's kenning house.

"Hey, hold it," Dick says, his grief shoved aside to make room for a healthy dose of self-preservation. "What are you doing?" The kenning controls things like the ship's shield, gravity, and atmosphere. There is no reason for a relatively green sailor to touch its controls.

"Adjusting the air for this tub," Jason says over his shoulder. "If we plan to sail all the way to the Shadow Realm, the kenning must be made to compensate for two sporlings. Or have you forgotten that I and my child do not breathe the same air as you and yours?"

"Oh." It's a fair point, but not something Dick would have expected the other man to think of. "That's rather judicious of you."

"It was Tim who thought of it," Jason says. His voice is soft and he keeps his back towards Dick, apparently fully focused on adjusting the kenning. "When we were planning for the future, once Danger was old enough to crawl free of the dirt."

"That's Tim, for you—always planning ahead."

Jason nods once with a firm sort of sureness. "He said he would be back, so we could raise our child together. He won't break his promise to me."

"Some promises can't always be kept," Dick cautions. His heart aches for how much this man clearly loved—still loves—his brother, but he fears Jason is setting himself up for a horrible disappointment. "No matter how hard a man may try."

"We'll see about _that_."

* * *

They've been traveling for just over a day when Dick can't stand wondering any longer and asks, "Why Danger?"

"Excuse me?" Jason looks over to his unwanted shipmate from where he's adjusting the sail to better catch the solar wind. He released Dick's arms some hours back—though not before he nicely asked the wood of the ship to keep him in place—and for now he's been set to baby-minding.

"Why did you name the youngling 'Danger'? It's an odd name, that's all."

Jason frowns, yanking on a rope a bit harder than necessary. "It's a good, strong name. Tim assured me it was traditional in your family. As pollinator, he had first-child naming rights."

"Aah." Dick hesitates, looking for all the world like he wants to say something but is reluctant to. After several minutes, he speaks up once more. "Just… Danger is a pretty weighty name for someone who can't even talk yet. What about a middle name? Does he have a middle name you could call him by?"

"His second name is Skull Crusher."

"You mean to tell me that Tim named your child _Danger Skull Crusher?_" Dick demands, looking absolutely shocked for some odd reason.

"No, don't be silly. He only had first-name rights. I chose Skull Crusher—it's a strong, very respectable sporling name. My budder's second name was Skull Crusher," Jason tells him, perhaps a bit more sternly than is truly warranted.

"O-oh. No offense to your parent, but Jason seems like a pretty, uh. Human name? I was just a bit thrown by that."

"My donor was very into heroic human sagas at the time of my sprouting," Jason admits. It's something of an embarrassment, though it did grant him some normalcy on Parkrow. "Also, I don't know why you think you're in any position to comment on someone's choice of names when you're named for a piece of human anatomy. I'm just grateful Tim didn't choose something ridiculous like 'Elbow' or 'Nose.'"

"That's not—" Dick sighs, shakes his head. "I suppose Danger Skull Crusher is a very good name for a warrior."

"Yes," Jason says, his heart swelling with more than a little pride. "I thought so, too."

* * *

Once they're clear of the system, Jason releases Dick's legs as well, and makes the man bring up the star charts showing Tim's last known location on the ship's kenning. "That's several days travel into the Shadow Realm," the sporling observes, looking troubled. "Not close to any of the systems they've settled, but a ways from more civilized regions."

"It makes no sense," Dick agrees. "Bruce specifically instructs all our scouts to steer clear of the Shadow Realm. Our clan has had less than pleasant dealings with them in the past and we aren't keen on having any kind of repeat."

Inexplicably, Jason hunches his shoulders, turning away from the kenning house to watch Danger who is playing in the center of the deck with some bits and scraps of wood, splinters carefully smoothed away by his father's Green magics. "I fear Tim's roaming is my fault in this case," he says, sounding more haunted than anyone of so few years should be. "I don't recall much of my life before I woke up in the old _völva_'s home on Parkrow, but what little I do retain features lurid shades of green and black, and a wooden door carved into the gaping maw of a demon."

Dick hisses and quickly makes a sign to ward off evil. He knows the stories as well as any. "You come from the Shadow Realm? I would not think your kind would do well there."

"From what your brother told me, the name comes from the dark magics they practice rather than any lack of light. And I didn't say that I hail from there, just that there is a good chance I spent time in that region, before coming to be what I am now."

"And what is that?"

"What?"

"What you are now?" Dick demands. If Jason sent Tim to the Shadow Realm with purpose, this entire situation may be a very different one than a distraught man holding out hope that his lover might still live. It could be an intelligence-gathering mission out of the Shadow Realm, and as Bruce's heir, he may very well have given the enemy an unexpected bonus.

"A parent who has lost his soul's companion and is desperate to see him safely home once more. I didn't ask Tim to venture among the Shadows—in point of fact, I begged him to avoid them—but he clearly took an interest in my history there, and sought to learn all that I would tell him of that region."

Jason's distress rings true to Dick's ears and he decides the sporling is still trustworthy, for now. If nothing else, he admitted to his connection to the Shadows of his own free will, and Dick cannot see him ever doing anything that might risk Danger's life. Aside, of course, from this entirely pointless rescue mission.

"That's Tim for you. Always willing to volunteer himself for the most dangerous tasks, even when the thing doesn't need to be done." Like how he left to scout alone, when normally such a journey would see a crew of two.

"I think this was less that and more a desire to set my mind at ease about my past," Jason says. "I've always been an outsider on Parkrow, even before I was clearly with bud. Perhaps he thought I might feel more at ease knowing more about my own people, should he happen upon them."

"Oh." That makes perfect sense, considering Tim's own history.

"Oh?"

"It's no wonder you both grew so close so quickly. He saw you as a kindred spirit, lacking both past and family, same as he," Dick suggests.

Jason leaves off trying to wrestle a block from Danger's mouth, staring up at him. "I don't understand—he has family, and quite a lot of it, considering all those I left sleeping on my floor."

"Bruce calls us all his children, but only the youngest of our number is his by blood." Dick checks the tie on the rudder, then comes to sit beside Jason and the youngling. "The rest he has acquired through adoption, fostering, or marriage. Tim was quite young when his parents passed through our settlement on Bristol. They were travelers, never staying in one place for long. They sought a private meeting with the chief and talked long into the night. I don't know what was shared in that council, but when dawn broke neither of them remained, and my elder sister found Tim tucked up in the rafters of the longhouse, no more than three or four cycles in age. I doubt he even remembers anything about them now, it's been so long."

"He never said," Jason says, shock apparent on his face. "Even I have fond memories of my budder holding and protecting me when I was small, making sure my roots grew long and deep." Reaching out, he gathers his own child to his chest, unheeding of the youngling's grumblings as the block is at last dislodged. "I never needed more family than Tim and Danger. He need not have ventured into peril."

Dick does not know what to say to that. He had thought Tim content with his life among their clan, but still his brother insisted on being a scout, voyaging farther and farther from Bristol, always pushing on. Now he can't help but wonder if perhaps Tim was searching for answers to his own past as well as Jason's.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The search continues as Our Heroes enter the edges of the Shadow Realm and encounter some of the mysteries that lurk there.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> HEY!! Go [check this out](https://archiveofourown.org/works/20486540)! Rider_of_Spades drew very trustworthy plant!Jason being a sexy sexpot. :OOO

In all, it takes three weeks for them to reach the Shadow Realm. As they draw nearer and nearer the location reported by the messenger probe, the solar winds die down and eventually vanish entirely, they're so far from any system. Jason lifts himself to the top of the mast with his vines and perches there, using an eyeglass pilfered from the ship's supplies to peer into the blackness around them. Hopefully, his god-touched sight will see more than Dick's weak human vision.

"Well?" Dick calls up to him, much to Jason's annoyance. The man is _supposed_ to be manning the rudder and keeping an eye on Danger, sure to wake up from his nap any minute now, especially if some idiot insists on unnecessary shouting.

"Bear a little to the right, and pull us up some two hundred feet. By that asteroid over there, the big reddish one," he calls down.

"What do you see?" Dick calls up even as he makes the adjustments to their heading.

Jason pockets the spyglass, peering into the blackness ahead of them with his naked eyes. The space is lit only by the lanterns on their prow and the shimmer of their shields, now that their sails have dulled to a barely there glow. Theoretically, he should see better with the glass than without, but the mirrors and mechanisms inside cloud his vision, and it isn't until it's gone that he sees the glimmer in the darkness.

"I'm not sure," he says, flinging out a vine towards that glimmer on instinct. He keeps it thin enough to be malleable, thick enough to protect it from the cold nothingness. Still, by the time it hooks around whatever is out there, he can barely feel the end and has to draw in the last several yards of the vine by hand. When it's at last in his hand, he nearly drops it as if burnt.

"What's that?" Dick asks as Jason shakily lowers himself back down to the deck, heart seizing as he stares down at his prize.

"A memento." He swallows, tries to find his voice around a tight throat, a throbbing head. Holding it up, he watches as the lantern light catches the brilliant red forever preserved in crystal, the leather thong it dangles from stiff and crumbling from its time in the void. "A sporling memento," Jason corrects himself. "It's customary to preserve a petal from a seedling's blossom and gift it to the bud's donor."

Dick's face falls to sadness and he reaches for Jason, though there are still several feet between them. "Is it Tim's?"

The edges of the crystal are achingly familiar—a corner here, a groove there. He remembers them well from when he shaped this keepsake for his pollinator, but it's been several rotas, and memories have been known to fail in the face of time. "Not necessarily. Look at this place—it could be from any ship, anyone," he says instead, flinging his arms wide. During his distraction, they have glided farther into the region and Dick can at last see what Jason spotted earlier from atop the mast, that the shapes drifting in the black are not merely asteroids, but a flotsam of any number of shipwrecked vessels.

"Gods preserve us," Dick whispers as they float by a _snekkja_, broken clean in two. "It's a boneyard. Surely we've volunteered ourselves for an early death by coming here."

"Don't be so dramatic, it's just the remnants of some old battle," Jason insists as he shoves the crystal in his pocket and out of mind. "I don't recognize the prows or sails, but none of these are Tim's ship." The _karve_ they are searching for will be smaller than usual, though not nearly as little as a _faering_, with no clan markings to speak of.

He makes his way over to Danger, running a hand over the little body and checking to make sure that the binding vines he set earlier are still securely in place, preventing the youngling from being thrown free of the ship should they run into any trouble. Danger's skin is a bit dry, so Jason tugs a water jug closer, dipping small rootlets in so the seedling can soak up more moisture.

"Some of these ships have colors and markings of the Shadow Realm." Jason glances up, and follows Dick's pointing finger to the cracked derelict of a _drakkar_, its prow carved in the likeness of a fearsome ghoul while the ragged green and black solar sails float motionless among the stars. "They look like they've been torn apart by some great beast, not damaged in battle."

"So the Shadows got what was coming to them for once. You won't see me weeping on their behalf."

"The Shadow Realm has one of the strongest and fastest fleets among the stars. Anything that could take out so many of their ships is a force to be reckoned with," Dick warns. "We are just one vessel, and do not have the manpower to properly defend if some beast or enemy is lurking among all this wreckage."

"Oh," Jason gasps, feeling a faint pull from among the flotsam. Rising to his feet, he moves to the bulwark, squinting at rocks drifting in the black. "This was a planet, once."

"What, truly? How can you tell?"

"See yonder rock? There is plant life rooted there. Long dead now, but alive once upon a time. Some small spark of the Green lingers still inside, and that calls out to me," Jason explains. "These plants were killed suddenly, with great violence—nothing like when you fell a tree to craft a ship. Could the Shadow Realm command such powerful black magics as to be able to destroy an entire planet?" He shudders, unwilling to give those vile people so much credit.

"If they did, it was a long time ago," Dick tells him. "Nothing rots in the icy black, but look at the raiments of yonder warriors—they are of an ancient cut and style, even for what is known of the Shadows."

The reassurance helps to calm Jason somewhat, but only so far as it means that whatever happened here, it all played out long before his lover ever passed through. "If it is old and long-forgot, there should have been no reason for Tim's ship to fail him."

"A mess like this? My brother was—is—a talented sailor, but even the most skilled cannot predict the nature of a dead planet. Particularly one that was killed before its time, dying angry and bitter and alone," Dick cautions. "We are risking drawing the wrath of its spirit simply by traveling here."

"A fair point, though the spark of the Green that remains should realize that two sporlings and a human will mean it no harm," Jason tells him a moment before the entire ship is jerked violently sideways, barely missing careening into the drifting hulk of a nearby _knarr_.

Dick leaps for the rudder in an effort to steady the vessel while Jason goes straight to Danger, rechecking that the seedling is secure. A cry from Dick draws his attention away momentarily, and he throws out a vine without looking, grabbing the man before he can pitch over the side. "Perhaps I spoke too soon."

"Dammit all, what in stars is happening?" Dick growls, catching hold of the kenning house as he's tossed past it. "These readings make no sense! It's claiming there's a large mass off the port side, something trying to pull us in."

"An asteroid?" But the only asteroid of any significant mass around them is the one they were headed for, are nearly on top of, now. "I fear it may be the planet's restless spirit, still angry about its fate."

"Well, now we know what destroyed Tim's _karve_," Dick gasps, clinging to the little structure as his feet start to float free of the deck. "Not that we'll ever have a chance to tell anyone—we're losing gravity, and shields will be the next to go." And with them, the air they both depend on to survive, as well as protection against the cold nothing all around them.

Crouched next to Danger, Jason draws the seedling close to his chest, wrapping vine after vine around him as the babe at last begins to stir from his nap. "I'm sorry, Dick. I truly did not think we would meet our end on this journey."

"I am sorry as well—I should have stopped you sooner, before it could get this far. If not for your own sake, at least for that of your child," Dick says and then, inexplicably, he throws himself at the rudder, yanking it hard starboard as another wave shakes them, sending them careening into the asteroid.

* * *

When Jason wakes, it is to layer upon layer of vines, all wrapped around him in a protective cocoon. Against his chest, Danger is fast asleep once more, the little twerp. He isn't sure how they're still alive—clearly, the vines served to cushion them when the ship crashed into the solid mass of the asteroid, but they should have frozen to death shortly thereafter, if they hadn't already run out of air to breathe.

Slowly, with great caution, he pulls back his vines, cradling Danger against his chest as he moves to sit up and take stock of his surroundings. They are, most certainly, on the surface of the asteroid. All around them are strewn the bits and pieces of the Bat Clan's _karve_, and not twenty feet away is a familiar-looking cocoon. His vines, it would seem, had a life of their own on the spur of the moment.

Walking over, he nudges them with his foot, pulling them back into himself as they draw away from Dick's huddled form. "Hello. I don't know why you chose to crash the ship, but it would seem you made the right choice, seeing as how this rock has air to breathe."

"And warmth below," Dick adds, his hand resting against the red rock under them. "Thank you for the vines. I doubt I would have made it without them."

"Well. You _are_ Tim's brother. I could hardly let you die." He rubs Danger's back, worrying his lip. "Of course, we're still stuck without a ship, food, or water." Or light, when it comes down to it. For now, they can still see each other from the smoldering remains of the ship, but once those fires go out…

"Ah, I just saw the haze around the asteroid and figured any air had to be better than none. I'm surprised it has an atmosphere, it's so small," Dick says, pushing to his feet and wandering over to root through some of the more-or-less intact wreckage until he digs out a lantern and lights it. Apparently, his mind went to the same place as Jason's. "Well, that's one problem solved for the moment. Some of the food stores may still be good as well, but I doubt many of the water barrels survived."

"If there is water, it must go to Danger. He is young and his body is still adapting to life outside the ground," Jason says, cuddling the seedling closer.

"I won't argue with that, though I do wonder if it might be more cruel than kind to prolong his life when it will be short and misery-filled from here on out."

As if prompted by his uncle's concern, Danger snuffles, lifting his little head and peering blearily about his new surroundings. Apparently displeased, he opens his mouth in a silent wail.

"Oh, stop fussing. We'll figure something out," Jason admonishes, though he has no idea what they're to do now.

"Is he… is that normal? Was he injured in the crash, that he makes no noise now?" Dick leans in, studying Danger's skewed-up face in the light of the lantern.

"No, he does this sometimes. Act like he's crying but making no noise despite all apparent efforts."

"Could it be like dogs, howling when the earth is about to shift below you?" Dick asks, swaying as the ground beneath them shifts and shudders. "He seems accurate enough in that respect."

"No, this prescience is some new development." He clutches the babe closer, though Danger has inexplicably left off his silent complaint for a squeal of delight, clapping his hands and struggling to see something over Jason's shoulder.

"Jason…" Dick say slowly, his own eyes widening as he stares into the distance. "During your training to become a _völva_, did you by chance learn how to parley with a star wyrm?"

* * *

The hill that rises from the ground to become a head is longer than the largest of the Bat Clan's _skeid_s, wider than the huge longhouse back on Bristol. The single eye that Dick can see is twice as big as his best shield, a blazing purplish-blue that seems to shimmer and glow in the dying fires dancing across the wreaked _karve_. The wyrm turns in their direction, breathing out with such force that it nearly bowls them over.

"I did not learn much in the way of star wyrms during my training," Jason admits, turning first to face the creature and then, after a glance over, quickly moving so that Dick is between the wyrm and Danger. Dick cannot very well berate the man for being a coward when he knows the sporling is thinking primarily of the safety of his youngling. "My mentor felt there was no point—so long has it been since one was last seen, she supposed them all gone. Passed on to some other galaxy, she thought."

"Perhaps this one was at the center of that wrecked planet?" Dick suggests, shuffling backwards as fast as Jason will let him. Danger keeps grabbing at his hair, trying to get him to move his head so the youngling can have an unobstructed view of the wyrm once more. "They are said to sink down and become one with the cores of the planets they helped when they near the end of their lives." If the Shadows disturbed a sleeping wyrm, they deserved all the bad fortune they received. Dick well remembers what old Alfred the _skald_ taught him when he was small, how wyrms flew among the stars in the old days, bringing air and life to the many moons and planets that people live on now.

"This planet was destroyed so many generations back that any wyrm at its core should have become inert space dust long ago. No, this is some younger wyrm, perhaps stopped to mourn a fallen comrade or a—Danger, stop!"

Something slams into Dick's back and a moment later it becomes clear it was Danger's small form, throwing himself clear of his parent's grasp. The youngling scurries across the red rock of the star wyrm's hide, crawling far faster than any awkward, chubby limbs should be capable off, chortling the entire time.

Dick is shoved to the side as Jason dives forward, vines slinging out ahead of him and still somehow not fast enough as the youngling continues to evade his parent. When Jason at last gains traction, he tackles Danger, rolling across the hard surface as he tucks himself up around his child, petting and checking all over.

"Jason," Dick says as calmly as he's able. "Don't move."

"Why the fuck not—oh." The sporling goes still as the wyrm very delicately nudges him with its nose.

"Ta! Tatatata!" Danger exclaims, already wriggling free once again, batting at the wyrm's nose with one chubby hand. Then he tilts back his head and does that odd, silent crying thing again, though this time his face is suffused in joy and delight.

"Oh," Jason says, sounding quite stunned. "I think the wyrm can hear him."

"What?" Dick asks, cautiously moving closer. "But he isn't saying anything."

"Some creatures can hear sounds the rest of us can't. Perhaps a child of both sporling and human stock can make and hear such things." Jason runs a hand down the youngling's back, frowning. "Danger, stop bothering the wyrm. We don't want it accidentally snorting you up if you tickle it too much."

"I doubt it would," Dick comments as he comes up beside them. "Star wyrms only exhale. They don't really breathe, so much as expel waste gasses after they process all the space and star dust they've gathered." Gasses that conveniently make up the air that most living things need to survive. It isn't certain, but stories hold that most atmospheres were started by star wyrms.

The wyrm snorts, which prompts Danger to squeal in ecstasy and clap his hands together with enthusiasm. "Well, that's a relief. I doubt I could pull Danger away from his new friend now."

Dick nods, crouching down beside them. "I don't wonder if it was his silent caterwauling that woke it in the first place. It seemed completely dormant earlier."

"Perhaps. Do you think it might be possible for us to communicate with it as well? Star wyrms can travel through the cold of space, taking their air and heat with them. We might not be stranded," Jason says.

As if in response to his question, a shudder runs through the wyrm and then it begins to slowly uncurl itself. Dick topples over from his crouch at the movement, wincing as he lands on his ass—though the wyrm may be a living creature, it feels just as hard as solid rock. "Ow."

"Here," Jason says, several vines stretching out to wrap themselves around Dick's waist. Looking over, he sees the other man has grown roots from his unshod feet, anchoring himself to the wyrm. "Can't have you falling off."

Under them, the wyrm rumbles, almost as if in agreement, and Dick pats its hide. "A star wyrm, I can't believe it. I've heard tales my whole life, but I truly thought they were all gone."

"Maybe they've just been hiding. They were hunted for a time, many millennia ago. Some foul people would harness them, forcing the wyrms to ferry them around the stars. I suppose it is not surprising that they might hide away in places like the outskirts of the Shadow Realm, where people seldom visit."

"It seems bent on helping us now," Dick observes as the wyrm turns and begins slowly weaving its way out of the ship graveyard. "Perhaps it's never encountered planet-side lifeforms before?"

"Perhaps," Jason says, glancing back at the now fast-retreating bits and pieces of broken ships and planet. "Though I wish it wasn't in such a hurry to leave this place. I wouldn't have minded staying to explore it further."

Dick's heart aches at the unspoken sorrow under the words. Somewhere in that mess surely floats the stiff corpse of his younger brother, Jason's companion and lover. "We have neither food nor water. Would you stay until you and your child became nothing more than space dust, searching for one who will never breathe again?"

"No, but—" A heartbreaking sort of keen colors the words as Jason seems to strain against his roots, still looking backwards.

"None of that," Dick chides, turning him to face forward, where Danger is already trying to slip free of his parent's vines once more in order to pester his new friend. "You must think of the future, not dwell on the past."

"Yes," Jason says, drawing his son close once more. "I suppose so."

* * *

If the star wyrm is unfamiliar with planet-dwellers, it certainly seems quite knowledgeable in their care and keeping. Before the day is out, it takes the time to slowly pass through an ice field, picking and choosing through the chunks to select specific ones to catch up and pass back to its passengers.

Much of the debris from the _karve_ flew off when the wyrm uncurled itself, but Dick managed to grab a mostly intact pot, and Jason an unbroken if empty barrel. They place the proffered ice in their vessels, and the radiating warmth of the wyrm's huge bulk soon melts it, revealing it to be potable and delicious, if still a bit chilly. That evening, they toast their host, revelling in the fact that the wyrm seems bent on keeping them hale and hearty during their journey, if not necessarily comfortable.

On the third day of traveling, they at last enter a system, and Jason and Danger both turn their faces towards the star at the center, soaking up its life-giving rays. Dick is less enthusiastic about the whole thing, though he seems pleased to have more than just the wyrm's eerie light to see by for a time.

As they pass by a moon, Jason's sense of the Green cries out in joy, a sentiment Danger chooses to mirror with his odd, soundless caterwauling. The wyrm seems to take note of the racket and glides down to the surface, carefully wrapping its wings around its passengers to protect them from the heat of entry.

"I swear that wyrm can understand every noise the youngling makes," Dick says as he pulls down large leaves for Jason's vines to sew together into makeshift bags to hold the fruit and other foodstuffs they've gathered while the wyrm frolics about in the nearby sea.

"Are you complaining? It is taking us back in the direction of your people, and even if it abandons us here, I could live out my days as contentedly as anywhere else," Jason replies. It would be a lonely existence, with only Danger and Dick for company, but he has lost the companion of his soul, and there is no way he will ever remedy that, no matter what place he settles.

"I don't mind! I'd just appreciate it more if it didn't seem to view us as some sort of fascinating pets," Dick grumbles, hauling the bag over to sit next to their refilled water barrel.

Danger sits beside it in his makeshift playpen, a circle of large rocks placed there by the wyrm before it slipped into the waves. When last Jason checked, the seedling was busy alternating between digging in and eating the sand. He would be concerned, but the grains will not do much to a sporling beyond cause an upset tummy and teach a valuable lesson, so he didn't think to stop it, despite Dick's fretting. Now, though…

He inhales sharply as a small tendril creeps over the top of a rock, poking and prodding about experimentally. "Oh, you clever sprout! You are _much_ too young to be making vines, you silly thing," Jason admonishes, leaving Dick to deal with the food as he goes to observe the seedling’s new skill.

On the ground, Danger grins up at him, a single white tooth starting to poke free of his gums. Small vines, most no thicker than Danger's littlest finger, sprout along his arms and legs, waving in the air. "Ba! Ba!"

"Yes, yes, very nice. And you're probably wasting far too much energy, making all of those," Jason grumbles, fetching his child out of the circle with a vine of his own. 

"Is it odd, his being able to make those at this age?" Dick asks, leaning in to coax a smile from his nephew.

"Certes, he should not grow them for another eight, ten rotas. I know that having a donor from another people can cause changes in growth, but I've never heard of any seedling advancing quite this quickly before."

"Well, Tim was always a bit of an overachiever. It stands to reason that his child would be as well."

"A fair point." Jason ducks his head, inhaling deeply the comfortingly familiar scent of his seedling's hair. For the first time, he does not correct or admonish Dick for speaking of Tim in the past tense.

* * *

They spend the night on the planet, lying under the stars and letting the gentle sound of the ocean lull them to sleep. With a star wyrm lounging next to them, they have no reason to fear any wildlife that may lurk in the jungle.

Jason cradles his seedling to his chest and watches the wyrm, its huge and luminous eyes turned skyward, clearly longing to return to the place where it feels most at home. "We will want to travel onward, in the morning," he reassures it. "If you are willing to continue to carry us."

He and Dick aren't certain if the creature can understand them any more than they can understand Danger's soundless nattering, but either way it turns its great head towards him now. A long, thick tongue snakes out of its muzzle to ever-so-gently pat the seedling's back. From what Jason can see, the tongue is oddly dry and just as rocklike as the rest of the wyrm, though with a smoother texture, as if the scales here are more fine in nature.

"Danger is still not for eating, my large friend," he reminds the wyrm, just in case it has decided to add living matter to its diet.

The wyrm wuffs, and hot, damp air washes over Jason like steam. "Yes, ha ha, I know, the little sporling is very amusing to you. But don't think I haven't noticed you have yet to eat more than ice crystals and asteroids." Dick may claim that wyrms subsist on space and star dust alone, and this one seems to be almost entirely made of rock, but its huge eyes are not all that different from those he's seen on animals, save for the stars that sparkle there even here on the surface of a planet.

For now, the wyrm moves its tongue to pat Jason's head. It's disconcerting, being the focus of such a large creature, but better him than his seedling. Pushing aside his last lingering, nagging sense of worry, he hesitantly rests a hand on the end of that huge, smooth tongue, and inexplicably feels some of his worry easy. Though he and Dick may be completely ignorant of the wyrm's long-term intentions, there is no doubt in his mind that he has found a kindred spirit in this great creature, left to drift alone in the blackness, all its fellows long passed on to other places.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Home again, for better or for worse.

It took them three weeks to travel from Parkrow to the edge of the Shadow Realm in one of the Bat Clan's fastest _karve_. They can't be sure of the passage of time now, having no means to track it beyond Danger's insistence on a somewhat-regular schedule of naps and feedings, but Dick estimates that it takes them less than half that time to cover the same distance on the back of the star wyrm. Certainly, they begin passing through systems he recognizes by the fourth day. By the ninth, a familiar-looking moon encroaches on their field of vision off the portside.

"That is Parkrow," Jason says, leaning forward to stare at it. "Tim showed me on the kenning of his _karve_ how it appeared from space—I recognize the eastern mountains, and the inland sea."

"We aren't slowing down," Dick observes. "I don't think our friend means to stop and drop you off."

Jason hesitates only briefly before brushing it off. "It is no longer my home. I only remained as long as I did first so Danger could outgrow his soil, and then because I was waiting for Tim to come back for us. I… I have no reason to return there, now."

Dick squeezes his shoulder. It's good that Jason has finally come to terms with Tim's loss, but it doesn't make it any easier for either of them. "You and Danger will always have a place among our people, either on Bristol as you wait for the babe to grow into a child, or among our warriors, should you wish it. You're quite handy with those vines of yours."

"You would have a _völva_ fight in battle and ravage villages?"

"Something tells me you know that is not the practice of the Bat Clan, otherwise you never would have struck up a friendship with my brother," Dick chides. "We are primarily traders, truth be told, though we do fight injustices when we find them, and offer shelter to the lost. My elder sister Barbara is one such rescued soul, and _völva_ for my people. By traveling with us, she reads the _ørlög_ and helps guide our ships to where we may do the most good."

"I will think on it. Not that your promises will do you any good if our friend here does not set us down anywhere near your people."

"Perhaps it means to take us to wherever the fleet is now," Dick ponders. "We have been gone for quite some time, and none of the Bat Clan's ships linger above Parkrow."

"A valid point. Though I do wonder how it would know where or who to take us to." Jason reaches out, stroking a hand down the back of the resting Danger before coming to sit beside Dick. "My little one has had many conversations, but somehow I doubt they have been of the same things that concern you and I."

"We will just have to wait and see. If nothing else, we can always stay on the next planet it stops at. We are in civilized space once more, it should be easy enough to get a message back to my people. There are many in this region who owe their peace and freedom to the Bat Clan."

"Tim said you were the ones who took care of those marauders several years back—the ones with faces like _draugr_," Jason says, his head tilting sideways. "They swept through Parkrow more than once in my early years there, and were responsible for the death of the _völva_ before me."

"The Owl Clan? Though horrible in nature, they were still formidable foes, more dead than alive. My clan cannot claim sole responsibility for their defeat, as we found it necessary to ally ourselves with our Amazon neighbors in order to stand a chance against them." Dick's heart clenches as he remembers the blood that bathed their decks that day, the broken vessels, the lost comrades. It was better for all peoples that the Owls and their loathsome ways be eradicated, but that did not make the task any less arduous and awful.

"Still, my thanks. I would never have felt it safe enough to bring a seedling into a world where they still roamed free. Had I waited, I would not have…" Jason trails off, glancing away to where Danger sleeps peacefully a short ways away, firmly anchored both by his parent's vines and a small rocky playpen that grew from the star wyrm's back on their second day of travel.

At first Dick pays little heed to Jason's silence, thinking him to just be reflecting fondly on his child. Then he notices the shudders that wrack his body, the soft, erratic breathing. Without a second thought, he pulls the man close much as he would any of his siblings, wrapping his arms around him. "Oh, Jason. It is alright to cry, you have no reason to hide your tears from me."

Jason crumples into the kindness, clearly desperate to at last give into these feelings and put aside the trappings of a father. "I will never see him again. I will never hear his laugh, never see his smile, never feel his touch," he gasps as he clings to Dick. "He promised he would return, and like a fool I believed him. For all the dangers I knew he might face, I never thought he wouldn't come back to me, to us. I know I must stay strong and sure for Danger, but it's so hard when every moment I can't help but remember that he will never know his other parent."

"As long as you have him in your heart, you will never truly lose him. He stays with you in memory—memory of all the good that he did, all the kindness he showed you and others," Dick says, rubbing Jason's back as he repeats all the things Bruce told him when he lost his own parents to the depravities of the Owls. "To say nothing of all the love he had for you, and I know it was a lot. All his messages home made some mention of Parkrow, he visited so often. He spoke of you with fondness, and the few times he returned to Bristol since meeting you, he made it clear how fond he was of you. Bruce had already set aside the mead for your honey-moon, he was so certain of a wedding in Tim's future."

Rather than reassure, this prompts another, louder sob from Jason, who clutches even tighter. "He never said, but I would have been so honored, had he asked me. He was so clever, so full of wonder—he made me see the world around me for what it truly was, so small and limited, such a tiny part of a much greater whole. I thought to spend the rest of my days with him, but now…"

"Now you still have your whole life to live, and a youngling to raise as well. A youngling who doesn't just share his father's eyes, from what I've seen, but certainly his smile as well. And perhaps his tricksy nature, considering how he is surely conspiring with the star wyrm about _something_."

* * *

Two days later, Jason is drowsing with Danger in his playpen when Dick shakes him awake. "Come, we are approaching, and you will want to see it from space before the wyrm lands."

"Approaching what?" Jason grumbles, automatically cuddling Danger closer until the seedling's fussing over the unscheduled disruption quiets.

"Bristol, of course."

That catches Jason's attention—long has he desired to see the home of his companion, to see what kind of place could produce so rare a blossom as Tim. The world before them is more a blur of blue, green, and white at this distance, though it quickly sharpens as he wipes the sleep from his eyes and truly focuses his attention. "We might just fly past."

"I doubt it. We should have landed for supplies yesterday, but the wyrm pressed on. I think it knew how close we were." There's a longing in Dick's voice, and Jason belatedly recalls with a painful sort of wistfulness that the man has a family on that distantly spinning rock, with a child and a pregnant wife. It has been at least two rotas since he insisted on accompanying Jason, and in that time Dick has had no news of his people.

"Wouldn't that be something, it knowing exactly where we wish to go. Even Danger could not tell it that much, since before this journey he had never been beyond Parkrow." Not that a seedling would know anything about navigating the stars, even if he could do anything like form words.

"Don't some of the old tales claim star wyrms possess a degree of _seiðr_-craft? Perhaps it kenned our own longings without us ever knowing," Jason suggests. The wyrm has been a thoughtful travel companion so far, finding water exactly when they need it, landing for them to take on food always just a day before their stores are set to run out or go foul. "Though I can't help but wonder how we erred in our behavior that it's so eager to get rid of us."

"Well, friend?" Dick asks, crouching to rest a hand on the wyrm's back. "Have we insulted you in some way?"

To the surprise of both of them, the wyrm snorts and rumbles in response, angling its body to go even faster, its wings curling over them protectively, blocking all view of the planet. In his arms, Danger fusses, pushing at him until at last Jason sets him back in his playpen.

"Taaa tatata. Te!" Danger proclaims before switching to his silent speech, all the while whacking the red rock under him with his tiny hand.

"Is he chastising the wyrm for waking him or for the journey ending so soon?" Dick asks, sounding genuinely curious.

Taking a chance, Jason focuses his attention on the youngling, allowing the strange awareness that takes him upon occasion to well up and take form. "He's frustrated," he says, more than a little surprised at the babe's strong emotions on the matter. "He fears the wyrm will leave us once we land, and he doesn't wish that to happen, he's grown so attached." Danger grows attached to very few things, and usually only those things he has had for a long while. His budder, a stuffed duck he has had since he was still rooted in dirt. Tim, during his last visit to Parkrow, when Danger was still planted and unable to do much more than wiggle and fuss. Even after all this time in close quarters with Dick, the seedling forgets about his uncle if not currently interacting with him.

"I never would have thought one could use the _spá_ to know what a fussing babe wishes," Dick remarks.

"It isn't something I can do at will. It comes and goes, like the tides on the ocean."

"Still—convenient. Barbara must use herbs and sit in undisturbed quiet for long periods for the same effect."

Jason suspects that the Bat Clan's _völva_ wishes more to escape her siblings' noise and nosiness than anything else, but far be it from him to disrupt the delicate balance of family politics. "If I could summon it on command, it would be of a great deal more use to me. It might have saved us from this entire wild goose chase." Might have let him see the truth of things, that there was no one to rescue, that Tim's family was correct to declare him lost.

Dick laughs and claps him on the shoulder. "Ah, but then we would have never made the glorious discovery of a living star wyrm! As hard as this all has been, there is very little I would trade for such an opportunity."

"You seem uncommonly pleased about this whole matter. Realize I fully intend to inform your father it was you and you alone who chose to wreck his ship with such purpose."

"A secret for you, then, before we land. Though he may rant and rail, Bruce is never truly upset as long as his family returns safely to his side."

"But we did not find Tim?"

Dick tosses him a wink, still grinning. "Do not forget—you and the youngling are part of his family now as well."

* * *

A whole fleet of ships is docked in the harbor when the wyrm's wings at last unfurl, catching an updraft to glide over the village, eschewing the neatly planted fields to instead hover over an adjoining meadow, waiting just long enough for the grazing livestock there to flee before finally settling to ground.

Danger wastes no time and immediately starts up his silent wail as soon as they disembark, and the wyrm's head swings around so it can give the babe a gentle pat with its tongue, startling the youngling into actual silence.

Dick bows deeply to the wyrm. "My thanks to you, friend. I do not know how many of my words you ken, but if there is anything my people can do to repay your kindness, you have only to ask and we will see your request granted, within reason."

Jason snorts, deftly managing a still-squirming Danger. "And how is it to ask, when the only one who seems able to talk with it is too young to form words the rest of us can understand?"

"Well, I don't know! In the sagas, there's generally some obvious act for the hero to perform, like pull a thorn from the beast's paw, or prepare an elaborate feast."

"I doubt we would be capable of pulling any thorn wicked enough to pierce a hide of rock and stone, and as you said yourself, the wyrms eat only star dust." Turning to the creature, Jason bows as well, though not nearly as deep due to Danger in his arms. "Friend, at least let us wash the travel from you before you leave us once more."

"A fair compromise," another voice supplies, and Jason whips around to stare at the crowd that has gathered at the meadow's edge while they were otherwise occupied. At the front of their number stands Bruce, cautiously watching the wyrm with a curious eye. "Since I expect this grand creature is responsible for seeing you all safely back to us, considering I see no sign of our missing craft."

"Bruce!" Dick cries, bounding over. "I'm sorry, but I had to—he could not believe Tim's fate without seeing it with his own eyes, and would have taken the ship no matter what."

The chieftain sighs, then claps his son on the shoulder, pulling him into a tight embrace. "I regret the loss of the ship but rejoice that you all three returned to me, and brought with you such a good omen as a star wyrm."

Others crowd around, badgering Dick with questions and demands to know what happened. Watching them, Jason hangs back, hugging Danger a little closer. He knows he is welcome, but he is loath to intrude on such camaraderie, particularly when he was so disrespectful a host in the past, misleading and stealing.

Something nudges at his back and he stumbles forward. A backwards glance shows the wyrm, watching intently and very much looking like it's raising a non-existent eyebrow at him. "I will, later. When they have finished their greetings."

The wyrm whuffs and turns, taking a few steps away before flapping its wings once, twice, then taking to the air once more, headed towards the sea.

"No, wait!" Jason gasps, loping after it, past Dick and Bruce and the rest of the startled crowd, past the fields, the village—all the way to the ocean's edge, which he reaches just in time to watch the wyrm plunge into the water, disappearing under the depths and setting the docked ships and boats bobbing. A bath. It simply wanted its promised bath, or perhaps to frolic in the waves, as it has on every other planet they've visited. He was so sure it meant to leave without any kind of farewell and that… Jason finds he simply isn't ready for that. The wyrm is his last possible means of learning what happened to Tim, and while he knows it doesn't matter, he desperately wants that small bit of closure.

In his arms, Danger has perked up, twisting about until Jason shifts him so he can watch the water as well. "Ta?"

"I don't know, my bud. It's been under for much longer than usual, but it doesn't need air like you or I," he reassures the seedling.

"Taaa," Danger whines, leaning forward in his arms, somehow desperate to escape.

"No," Jason firmly tells him. "You may still be small enough to float and bob, but we don't know what could be living in these waters." Likely nothing too dangerous this close to a settlement, but he'd rather not take risks. Those animals that eat meat have a hard time distinguishing a moving plant from prey, and those that eat plants can be voracious when it comes to tender new seedlings like Danger.

"Ta! Tatata _te!_" the youngling insists, tiny vines sprouting outwards to try and push free from Jason's grip.

"We'll go out on the dock and wait, alright? But you stay in my lap," he offers in compromise, striding out to the end of the dock and sitting down to dangle his feet in the water. Looking out, he can see something large and dark moving in the deep water further from shore, but his green eye fails him and keeps him from kenning much more.

In his lap, Danger settles somewhat as well, momentarily distracted by dipping his tiny vines into the water and laughing gleefully at the ripples they create. Jason extends one of his own to chase after them, and for a time they content themselves with that, playing this very simple game of tag.

Suddenly, Danger perks up in his lap, squealing in delight and clapping his hands. "_TA!_" he cries out and pitches forward. Jason is so focused on keeping hold of him that he only catches the shape that springs from the water from out of the corner of his eye. His head jerks up for a closer look, but whatever it was has already disappeared back below the waves.

Still, the brief glimpse he did catch didn't look particularly red, and he tries to gather Danger close, to move away from the edge of the dock. If there's some other creature lurking under the waves nearby, something large enough and lethal enough to take out a star wyrm, this is the last place he wants to be, particularly as long as he has the seedling with him.

"Come," he says, starting to pull his feet from the water. Something clamps onto him, grabbing his ankle and tugging and Jason goes absolutely still with fear. If he's pulled under, there's nowhere he can put Danger to keep him safe, nothing he can do if some awful beast has set its sights on them—

"What, my love," an achingly familiar voice breaks through his panic. "So quick to run from me now, when at last I have voice to speak with you once more?"

Very slowly, Jason looks down, not entirely certain what he dares hope he'll see.

There, bobbing in the water beside the dock, Jason's ankle in hand and a cheeky smile on his face, is Tim.

* * *

"Surely, you must be a _draugr_," Jason gasps, staring down at the thing in the water that cannot possibly be his lover. "Or some foul beast changed shape to trick me."

"Nay, my heart, it is truly me," the thing says, stroking Jason's foot with his thumb, lifting it to gently kiss the sole. "I know you and my family think me dead, but I swear it is not so. Did I not promise I would return to you? Though I suppose it was you who came to me, in the end."

Staring down, realization slowly dawns on Jason. "You were the star wyrm. But… how?"

"Perhaps a question that only the parents who bore me could truly answer," the thing admits, releasing Jason's ankle so he can grip the edge of the dock and pull himself up onto it. "My _karve_ was pulled apart by whatever presence lingered in the ship graveyard you found me in, and I thought for certain I was lost. My last thoughts were of you and our child and then I knew nothing until Danger's cries roused me once more."

"You just awoke a wyrm? I'm sure you can understand that I find that very hard to believe." Jason is still not entirely sure this isn't a _draugr_, one of the walking dead come to haunt him for his failure to find Tim's body and give it a proper burial.

"I think my parents may have been wyrms, or at least one of them was. The ability to become one always lay locked up inside me, only set free when my body knew there as no other way for me to survive. I have thought about it long and hard during the entire journey here, and I believe I know why the star wyrms disappeared from this part of space. Certainly some traveled on to other regions as we always thought, but I believe the vast majority of them chose to mingle with the people they sewed life-giving homes for, to learn their ways and enjoy the companionship of others," the thing—_Tim_—says. Tentatively reaching out, he places a hand atop Jason's. Not clasping it, just… touching. "At last I know the reason for the wandering nature of my soul, but I must admit that it is lonely business, traveling the stars on my own."

"_Ta_," Danger interjects before either of his parents can say anymore, reaching out for Tim. Wordlessly, Jason passes him over.

"You were a very good bud," Tim praises, cuddling the seedling close. "I could never have done it without your cries to wake me. Thank you for that."

"When Danger cries silently," Jason says with dawning realization. "That's the wyrm in him asserting itself."

"Yes. Sound carries not through the black between the stars, so the wyrms use a different means to communicate. It's rather difficult to explain, but when I woke up from whatever trance I was in, it was as if I had all this knowledge of the wyrms in my head, awakened by whatever instinct told my body what to do. I know not their history, but I do know their biology. Enough to at least keep my family safe, once Danger made me aware of my changed form and why you did not recognize me immediately."

"I should have," Jason admits, feeling stupid and foolish. "I knew there was something about the wyrm's eyes that drew me in, but they were so large I was blind to what was quite literally staring me right in the face."

"And I was not entirely sure I could change back to a wyrm if I took on human form once more. I didn't dare try until I had us all safely home and could freely shed my rocky skin without fear that I might strand us in some foreign land."

In the distance, Jason can hear shouting and he knows if he turns his head to look, he'll see the crowd from earlier at last returning to the village at their much slower human pace. He doesn't look, has no reason to when his whole world is right here once more beside him. "Is it?" he asks, keeping his gaze steady. "Home?"

"Oh, my love, of course it is, just as I promised you. That is, if you'll still have me—scales and all."

In answer, Jason leans in, capturing Tim's mouth with his own. There are conversations that need to be had, but for now their seedling's joyful chortling gives voice to all the words that truly need saying.

**Author's Note:**

> [I have a tumblr!](http://themandylion.tumblr.com/) Come visit if you want ridiculous AU headcanons, rants about the English language (and/or educational publishing), history fangirling, adorable baby bats, and veeeeery occasional fanart. Also, because I am an actual human being with opinions of my own, sometimes I post or reblog things that reflect those opinions. If you can't handle the idea of someone existing in the universe and possessing opinions which differ from your own, you probably should not click on that link.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Plant Alien Jason](https://archiveofourown.org/works/20486540) by [Rider_of_Spades](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rider_of_Spades/pseuds/Rider_of_Spades)


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